Main school holidays to fall in December from 2025

The government has decided to postpone the main school holidays to December as it was before the outbreak of Covid-19

The decision was taken after discussing a paper submitted by the Ministry of Education at the Cabinet meeting held on Sunday. The decision was announced at a press conference at the Presidential Office on Sunday evening.

"This decision will bring back our main holidays in 2025. That's how it was since we were in school. And at the same time, the academic calendar for 2026 will start in January to the rule,” Nazim said.

"That means, students will have three weeks off in July and four weeks off in December."

Nazim said the government's intention is to change the education calendar gradually instead of doing this suddenly. With the changes, the new year will start in January within two years, or from 2026 onwards, he said.

“It is in such a way that the students will not face major challenges or difficulties,” Nazim said.

The Ministry of Education will announce further details of the decision in the coming days, Nazim said.

The main holiday is to be postponed to December as a promise made by President Mohammed Muizzu during his presidential campaign. The President also explained his intention to change the holiday by elaborating on the promise during the campaign. Thus:

The main holiday has been moved to May-June by the government of President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. One reason, the government said at the time, was that Maldives is a tourism-dependent country and resort employees could not make proper use of the school holidays during the peak season in December.

The weather is also bad at year end mostly. However, June-July is also a bad weather period for Maldives.